YouTube toughened its hate speech policy after mounting criticism that the Google unit isn’t doing enough to keep extreme content off its online video service.
The company said Wednesday it will prohibit videos “alleging that a group is superior in order to justify discrimination, segregation or exclusion based on qualities like age, gender, race, caste, religion, sexual orientation or veteran status.”
This includes videos that promote or glorify Nazi ideology, which YouTube called “inherently discriminatory.” The company said in a blog post it will also remove content denying that well-documented violent events, such as the Holocaust or the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, took place.
YouTube Channels that repeatedly violate these hate speech policies will be suspended from the YouTube Partner program, which means they won’t be able to run ads on their channel, the company said.
The announcement was undercut by controversy over YouTube videos from conservative comedian and commentator Steven Crowder. He made homophobic and racist jokes about a journalist and YouTube initially said the behavior didn’t violate its policies. But after Google employees protested, the video giant took action on Wednesday.
To contact the reporter on this story: Alistair Barr in San Francisco at abarr18@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Jillian Ward at jward56@bloomberg.net, Andrew Pollack, Emily Biuso
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